Our clinic does visits once a week to outlying sites. Usually in such cases, the providers connect back to the home office via VPN. The clinic's laptop (an HP) has been configured to be able to print to an HP OfficeJet 100 Mobile printer, connecting via Bluetooth. No big deal, right?

Now, one of our providers is using his personal Mac to do the same. It has Bluetooth capability, and we've been able to configure the VPN to connect back to the servers here in the main office, but I can't seem to get things set up to be able to print documents from the main office on the Bluetooth HP printer. The Mac connects to the printer, but when printing documents from the server, the Bluetooth printer isn't recognized. It doesn't even appear as an option.

I know zero about Apple products. Can anyone dumb this down for someone who hasn't joined the Cult of Jobs? What am I missing?

13 Replies

You are probably giving way too much information here that is not relevant to the problem or the solution. When troubleshooting, I like to cut away variables that do not matter and go for the low hanging fruit.

First, you said the mac attaches to the bluetooth printer right? I assume you can print a test document or a PDF to it then?

When you say "documents from the server" what does that mean? Are you going through terminal server? If so, terminal servers are not going to be able to print to locally attached printers on a Mac. From a PC they can be configured to do so.

<rant>Laslty, if you want assistance from IT professionals that work on both PC's and Mac's, drop the "Cult of jobs" nonsense. It's tired, played... Mac and iOS users aren't all mindless drones, and by adding this to your question you are almost calling out those that might try to assist you as being mindless drones.</rant>

You are probably giving way too much information here that is not relevant to the problem or the solution. When troubleshooting, I like to cut away variables that do not matter and go for the low hanging fruit.

First, you said the mac attaches to the bluetooth printer right? I assume you can print a test document or a PDF to it then?

When you say "documents from the server" what does that mean? Are you going through terminal server? If so, terminal servers are not going to be able to print to locally attached printers on a Mac. From a PC they can be configured to do so.

<rant>Laslty, if you want assistance from IT professionals that work on both PC's and Mac's, drop the "Cult of jobs" nonsense. It's tired, played... Mac and iOS users aren't all mindless drones, and by adding this to your question you are almost calling out those that might try to assist you as being mindless drones.</rant>

Sorry, poor attempt at humor. My apologies.

I've been staring at this for so long, I think I'm overthinking it.

Our EMR system runs on a remote desktop server. I was able to configure the HP laptop to be able to print from the EMR system (via the remote desktop/VPN connection) to the Bluetooth printer. The Mac isn't recognizing the local printers when attempting to print from the EMR system on the remote desktop server.

The last time I touched a Mac was 1997, and it was to play "X-Wing" while I sobered up after an epic pub crawl.

I have to respectfully disagree with Chad that you are giving TMI, there is often no such thing when dealing with the kind of issue you are describing since you may not know what is relevant or not. Having said that, Chad is correct about TS not seeing local printers well on a Mac. It's an unfortunate fact that using Windows-based services on other platforms just doesn't play out very well most of the time. Of course, using non-Windows servers with Windows workstations can also create strange problems.

Here's what I'd tell the user (tactfully!): You don't support Mac. You don't have experience with it and it's not in your job description. If they want to use their Mac and the printer for this application, they should consider adding Windows to their system using Boot Camp (a free dual-boot tool included with OS X) or Parallels (a VM tool that runs about $60). Be prepared for resistance - while I agree with Chad that your choice of words "Cult of Jobs" was probably not the best, the implication that it has about Mac users being fiercely loyal to Apple is true in many cases. There are many Mac people that REALLY don't want Windows on their systems in any way, shape or form.

Just as a side note for you: OS X is based on BSD - a derivative of UNIX, just like Linux. As such, tools can sometimes be found online to help with issues like this, but you will often have to look long and hard to find them.

1st Post

Cord is "OK" but i find it to be very flakey at best. A bit about me so hopefully you know I am not just full of it :)

I am an IT Professional and I use a 2012 Macbook Pro daily at work supporting the company I work for which is an all Windows all HP shop. We have remote sites and workers who have to connect back the our Corp office via VPN and use our terminal server to run applications and print.

When I am on the road traveling and when I am in the office. I have moved away from using Cord (due to it being flakey and unreliable in some situations. The best solution I have found so far is to install a windows VM on the Mac.

I use VMware Fusion (Think it is $49 or so). With the Win VM running you can connect to the VPN inside the VM, I even joined my VM to the company domain. I use RDP in widows to connect remotely to any machines I need. VMware fusion shares the installed printer on my Mac to the VM which then allows me to print directly from our terminal server to the printers attached to my Mac or to the printers attached to that server.

I have tried several options and this one is the simplest (for me anyways) I have come across.

Hopefully this is somewhat helpful.

Boot Camp is ok too, But it requires the user to shutdown MAC OSX and boot into windows only.

Parallels is old school and has been greatly improved upon by VMware

-- Telling an enduser you don't support that just feels wrong to me. Part of my job is to find a solution to the problem. My company may not pay for the solution, but then the Enduser has the best info in order to use his personal machine. It is important to make sure he or she knows we can not support the machine itself, but will be happy to help them get connect to the company network in a way that is secure and does not break company policy.

Thanks, DigitalPunk, for confirming the advice I gave above, as well as advising on better VM software. I knew Boot Camp's limitation, but in some cases (needing direct access to the firewire port in my case) it works better that the other option I had experience with. I have a single Mac on my home network of 14 computers as well as a few clients with a Mac here and a Mac there, so I have **some** experience, but it's nice to get input from those with more experience. It helps me keep learning, a funny passion of mine!

That's a perfectly valid opinion of CoRD. It can occasionally tend to be crash-prone. However, as someone who manages multiple Windows domains spread across thousands of users, I tend to find it stable enough and more efficient than the MS-provided client or running an XP, Vista, or 7 domain client in Fusion or VirtualBox. It particularly shines when you manage a large number of boxes simultaneously, although this is not the OP's use case.

The important thing to keep in mind is that for an average user, there is the cost of the virtualisation software, as well as the Windows OS itself, for what amounts to a fairly clunky workaround.

I agree the cost of a Windows License for the Fusion path as a fix has cost, but I have had no issue with it since I set it up. However depending on the Macbook Pro specs of the OP user would tell us if doing a VM is even possible. My Macbook as 16Gb of Ram. I have 6Gb dedicated to the Windows 8 VM (Yes Win 8, switched to it from 7 to start learning the new OS menu layout and test software. I surpisingly hate it less and less the more I use it).

I think trying Cord is worth it. I wa san outsource IT guy and did not like it for the uses I was needing it for, but I do agree with Rich7647 that Cord is much much better than the MS RDP client for Mac.

I think the best point to take away from all of these responses is that there are more than one solution for the OP case and he now has several ideas to look into and decide which one would be best for his case.

The important thing to keep in mind is that for an average user, there is the cost of the virtualisation software, as well as the Windows OS itself, for what amounts to a fairly clunky workaround.

That is also an opinion - one that on some older Macs probably has a basis in experience. I have found that, on current hardware, VMs tend to run well. The cost is a valid consideration, but it may be worth it, particularly if bulk licensing is available.

Oh and another cool thing with Fusion, Since I manage a VMware cluster at work and have fusion on my Mac and can take a snapshot of the server VM and suck it into my Mac and take it home with me to work on it over the weekend or to run software tests etc. Its very cool stuff. I love Virtualization lol.

The built-in VPN capability works with Windows (Server)-provided VPN perfectly. Another option would be to permit the Mac user(s) to print directly to the printers - with VPN configured correctly the traffic would pass just fine.

The laptops are being used by nurses and providers to take from exam room to exam room when we do outreach clinics (docs seeing patients at locations other than our own clinic). The other clinics loan us the space once a week, and we use their wifi to VPN back to home office.

Why Bluetooth? Portability and lack of cabling. It's currently set to automatically find the printer, so none of the less-than-tech-savvy people need to worry about what cable goes where (we've tried wired. Too much of a headache). I can't be there for them all the time. There are weeks where we're doing 3 outreach clinics at the same time spread across the area (~50 miles). I'm just one guy vs 10 doctors (plus all of the RNs & staff--around 70 people). I want to make this as painless as possible.

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